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E36 (1991 - 1999) The E36 chassis 3-Series BMW was a huge hit among driving enthusiasts from the first moment the car hit the pavement. The E36 won numerous awards over the years it was produced and is still a favorite of many BMW enthusiasts to this day! -- View the E36 Wiki

Hey all i've had cooling problems with my e36 since i got it..water pump failed resulting in a blown head gasket, which i replaced and milled the head and what not..anyways i did the head gasket right..replaced water pump, thermostat, and radiator all within the last 5k miles. So now heres my dilemma. when i get up to operating temperate my upper right hose will have allot of pressure and be very hot, while the lower hose is cold..so i open the bleeder valve to relieve pressure and the heat will start working in the cab for a good amount of time until i come to a stop and idle...sometimes it will start to go over operating temp..so i will pull over and relive pressure, then it goes back to operating temp and is ok..but it seems like i am at a never ending battle with air in my system..so now heres the weird thing to me..while the coolant coming out of the bleeder screw is hot..the expansion tank coolant is still ice cold and has barley any pressure at times, i really don't want it to overheat and blow the head gasket again, someone please tell me what is going on!

i dont think thats very likely but its a possibility. think the only way to test it is to pull the thermostat and put it in a pot of water and heat it up until you see it pop open. then measure the temp of the water. depending on teh thermostat it could be 88degC or 93degC.

i replaced thermostat yes, but not housing, thats kinda what i was asking..would that be keeping the thermo closed and not letting fluid flow freely?

I'm struggling to see any way the TStat housing could be warped enough to interfere with the Tstat and not be immediately visible as well as leaking coolant. This may seem like a silly question but I have to ask, could you have installed the Tstat backwards? It's been done before.....

Don't know what bleeding procedure you're using but this one has always worked for me. You have to add the coolant VERY slowly and let it keep overflowing until there are no bubbles, not even tiny ones coming out of the bleed screw hole. As the DIY states do not do this with the engine running. Also make certain all your heat controls are set to the highest setting, both the temp control and the cool/heat control.

just some thoughts,very rare but i have some pumps with defective impeller,double check belt routing,back to basics did u put correct side of head gasket up marked top,some shops have special machine to eliminate air pockets,i would try to find one to do this procedure first if ur still having trouble,put a post up if u solve problem,good luck

Okay so it takes two people to bleed my system properly, so I empyted the system, drained the block. Then filled up the resivor while person #2 started the car and held the throttle at 2k-2.5k RPM. with heat and fan on full blast. As I continued to fill the resivor allot of bubbles came through the bleeder screw, took over an extra gallon of 50/50 mix to fully bleed it. . All in all make sure you have 2 gal antifreeze and 2 gal distilled in my case it took 3 gal of both, " air sucking wh*re imo" until the fluid from the bleeder screw was clear from bubbles. Now I get heat when I idle as well as driving.. works perf . Oh and front end was jacked up about a foot.

This is why you needed so much extra coolant. When you run the engine while you are bleeding, the water pump aerates the coolant when the system is partially filled and then it takes a lot more coolant to bleed out the mixed in air.
Everyone thinks you have to run the engine to open the thermostat to get the system bled but the thermostats come with either a small bleed hole or a dimple in the valve to allow air to bleed by. This is why the thermostat has an orientation arrow so that you install it with the bleed vent at the top. That's why you have to add the coolant very, very, very slowly.